


Rapture of Emotion

by Varjo



Series: Timeline [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comfort No Hurt, F/F, Mentions of Imprisonment, Mild Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varjo/pseuds/Varjo
Summary: Archangel Michael is troubled. So troubled, in fact, she submits a grave request to the office of Archangel Gabriel. Archangel Uriel tries her best to stabilize her again, which will involve her twin brother, Archangel Raphael, as well as her own, dutifully bottled up feelings for her commander. Comfort ensues.I have no idea what I should tag this with since there's nothing in it I would really think of as offensive and/ or triggering. If I am wrong, please do tell and I will put it right. Thanks!
Relationships: Michael/Uriel (Good Omens)
Series: Timeline [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842865
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

There was a knock on the door – Archangel Gabriel looked up from his work, readying himself to bid the knocking person enter, but the door was already being opened. Slowly. Measured. The enterer’s presence just by itself lowered the temperature in his office by a few degrees, but Gabriel had nothing less in mind than to be put off by it. He was aware of Uriel’s and Sandalphon’s presences behind him. They had been ordered into his office because he needed witnesses for his declaration – also because they should know. This was exemplary.

“Request permission to enter,” said Michael who was standing in the door frame with a tense look.

Leaning back, the silvery Archangel granted it with no more than a hand gesture.

Gabriel, probing yet hopefully discreet, reached out for Michael’s aura and state of mind upon her entering, closing the door behind her, and stepping into the exact centre of the room, all the while eyeing him with bone-dry deference. There was the usual, ice-cold pride, even if it felt a bit tired, cracked, frail at the moment, the usual strength and unapproachability, exuberance and resilience, but also a fatigue and weariness that was completely new to Michael – more, it didn’t seem to suit her at all. Sensing these upon her was like putting a brightly lit candle under a dirty glass – or, far worse, like putting a farm yoke over a noble warhorse and making it do base work, spraying it with dirt, starving it and letting it get all run-down like common livestock. And there was another perturbing thing… Gabriel sensed doubts.

Doubts that ran through Michael’s mind like worm tunnels through an apple…

Gabriel leafed idly through the parchment sheets lying on the desk in front of him in a neat stack; Michael’s eyes rested on him with noble restraint, but also electrical tension. She was too haughty, too much aware of her station and the poise she owed to herself to admit how much she depended on his response to this request, Gabriel knew it all too well.

But what exactly was it that depended on it for her?

He took time to test her by staying silent still for a few moments. Michael stood like a statue, leaning back slightly and hiding her hands behind her back, and if it touched her in any meaningful way to be thusly kept in the dark, she didn’t let it show. Her mouth was closed, her face stony, even her eyes gave no involvement away.

“Your request reached me,” he finally began, letting Michael feel how difficult the whole situation was for him too.

She didn’t even flinch. Her glance was like icy water.

The offending element in dry, crumbly parchment sat in front of him, fresh sealing wax steamed and stank on it.

Gabriel’s gaze drilled intensely into Michael’s skull as he added, “And I decided with the Creator’s help to decline it.”

A tremor ran through Michael, but she clenched her teeth and kept control. Behind him, however, from Uriel’s direction, Gabriel sensed something else – an emotion like cold shock, a start, creeping up unexpectedly, hurriedly dismissed and hushed up. Fascinating, the silvery Archangel thought as he picked up one of the stamps he used to emboss his verdicts on the application forms. There was possibly something unexplored here that he should keep an eye on.

“However, I couldn’t help asking myself,” he leaned forward in his chair, staring into Michael's unmoving face and paying close attention to every tiny muscle twitch, “what may have caused you to submit such a request? I mean…” he consulted the writing again, “… complete release from your duties and tasks, for indefinite time, with the suggestion to entrust them to Uriel in the meantime.” The top Archangel’s glance fluttered back and forth between the two others; Uriel did not appear to have been initiated. Her jaw was clenched, and her eyes seemed watery. Who was she kidding herself she were able to deceive with her forcedly regal and upright stance? 

“Permission to leave Heaven. Application for preservation of your body while you are gone, without…” and here both his voice grew piercing and his eyes almost dissecting, “… making us understand your whys and wherefores, Archangel Michael. What… is your motivation and what do you plan to do with all this time?”

All the while he gestured with the stamp, but neither put it back on the table nor down upon the sealing wax, as if to provoke Michael.

The question hung in the air like a sword at Michael’s throat. She kept her reticent, pristine demeanour, and it didn’t even look like she had to break a sweat. Gabriel felt that she was gathering energy as if getting ready to strike – but she should be well advised to express her aggressions outside of his office. There were a bunch of deviants a few floors down that would certainly be eager to be first-hand acquainted with the blade of her flaming sword or her fists strengthened by holy anger.

“I have doubts about my ability to further Heaven’s purpose,” Michael made an attempt to explain. Her voice was cold steel.

Gabriel snorted. „Nonsense,” he said condescendingly, spreading his arms over his table, “you are a source of heavenly radiance. You protect us all! How should you ever stop serving Heaven’s purpose?”

“The Almighty no longer hears my prayers,” she replied dryly.

A grin appeared on Gabriel’s face. „Oh, I’m sure that is not the case at all,” he opposed light-heartedly, “She’s merely too busy to answer every word addressed to Her in detail. Do not think much of it if you fall behind a little yourself, Michael, She has to know all too well about your loyalty and dedication. In the end you know like all of us that we, the agents of salvation, are in the Almighty’s greatest favour. You still do feel Her love and guidance in you, now, Michael, don’t you?”

Michael stayed silent – but there was a harsh, almost violent turn in her face that hinted at how displeased she was with her superior’s conduct and easy dismissal of her words and thoughts. Well, that was her problem. She was Gabriel’s inferior – if she thought she could do better than him, she was welcome to try overthrowing him. Then she could steer things to her liking – but not a moment earlier.  
And as long as he had any sort of jurisdiction here…

Finally turning away from the applicant, he pressed the ‘denied’-seal into the seal wax, reached for the quill and put his sigil and signature beneath. Michael wouldn’t be relieved of her duties for one single day. Gabriel knew what an asset she was, and he was determined to keep her around, at whatever cost.

“I expect you to observe your duties as was planned, tomorrow and all the days after,” he ordered Michael, holding the document out to her who approached with steady composure to accept it. Not even her hand was trembling. “I expect you, furthermore, to find your faith again. We cannot allow ourselves to lose a shining star like you – and if I may remind you of Lucifer’s fate…”

“With all due respect,” Michael interrupted brashly which made Gabriel pull a face in annoyance, “I have no need of that reminder – as you very well I know I played a big part in Lucifer’s fall from grace, and before I let something like that happen to me, I will face and enact the consequences all by myself. But this is beside the point, Archangel. I will accept your verdict. I will assume my post and fulfil my duties as I was commanded.”

After a bow, she turned and left the office – though not without crumpling up the paper in her hand after having brought only a few steps between herself and the room.

Gabriel gazed at her white-clad back for some minutes and pondered whether he needed to take action – for the first, he finally deliberated, it was probably best to let it lie. Surely, if Michael who had always been a prime example of conviction and single-mindedness wavered or felt rebellious, then he would have to think of something, but for the moment it seemed she was faithful enough. Concerned about Heaven's and the cause's welfare, even. If this got worse, however…

Archangel Uriel, though, she seemed to be another story. She who Michael had named her second-in-command still emitted incredulity and shock. Glancing back at her, he could discern that the golden Archangel was restless, and that apprehension and turbulence were unmistakably written all over her face.

What was the nature of these reactions? Did she perchance not believe in his better judgement and the necessity to follow his orders and decisions?

Gabriel kept both attendants in his office for unreasonably long to try getting to the bottom of this, but in the end, he had to admit it was pointless. He could only feel it was there, not what exactly it might be, or why, or what best to do about it. Disgruntled he dismissed Sandalphon and Uriel; and whereas the former left with a slow, comfortable, downright ambling gait, having all the time in the world and none of the worries, the latter rushed away, just barely not running, as if she were in a race with someone who wasn’t aware of the competition and shouldn’t catch on.

Gabriel would have to keep an eye on this.


	2. Chapter 2

Without looking left or right, Uriel crossed Heaven’s chambers and corridors; nothing moved, nowhere. Her nerves were taut, and her teeth occasionally pressed down on her lower lip. She had to find Michael, quickly, before something could happen…

At this thought she stopped short. What was supposed to happen?

What was it that unsettled her so much?

To think this through, thoroughly and earnestly, meant trouble and Uriel was well aware of that. Still, she couldn’t prevent it; whatever could happen to herself should happen, Uriel considered herself strong enough to face fate, but she could not have Michael’s fall on her conscience. She couldn’t allow it to happen without a struggle, couldn’t just idly stand by.

Michael! Michael, where are you?

The General's office was empty in every sense of the word; no more than a desk stood in the middle of the room, filing cabinets lined the walls. On the walls were mounted the one or the other depiction of herself as a boyish soldier slaying a dragon, but apart from that, there was no indication that anyone had ever set foot in here. Only the application form, crumpled up but whole and unharmed, that lay on the floor gave a hint that Michael must have dropped by only a short while ago. Uriel picked up the sheet swiftly, flattened it carefully and put it away into one of the cabinets to, on the one hand, remove it from Michael’s sight and, on the other hand, preserve the necessary order. As soon as that had been done, however, she quickly left the office and took a definite direction; now that she had checked here and turned up nothing, there was only one other place she could imagine her General had fled to.

Even before she could see her Uriel heard Michael’s shouting. It appeared to be worse than she had imagined.

The angels’ training field was vast and adorned with different weapons and dummies, to be used for training armed as well as bare-fisted fighting, as well as targets for archers, and for the moment it was completely deserted except for her. Michael had exchanged her flaming sword for a dull training blade, and, only visible as a white blur, rushed back and forth between five training dummies arranged in a circle and beat them up badly. She punched and kicked, slit and singed, blinded imaginary foes with sacred light, hit them with elbows, knees and shoulders, feet and fists, threw them down and whisked them away. Sawdust and feathers flew, pieces of cloth and splinters of wood, and yet, it didn’t seem to suffice. Michael’s breathless, wordless, unchained fury only seemed to heighten with every lunge and step, every swinging of the sword and every preparation to strike with foot or fist.

Uriel felt tempted to stop and just watch her commander – how often was it that a simple warrior could observe an artist at work? She hadn’t fought like this since Lucifer’s fall; he had been the only opponent to see halfway eye-to-eye with her. But Uriel was also well aware of her duty – of what made her follow Michael in the first place – and for the moment, this was more important than her admiration for the pale Archangel and her masterful fighting technique. Therefore, she stepped forward, cleared her throat and accepted humbly the lordly and aggravated, yet begrudgingly affectionate glance that Michael shot her as she, trembling and making herself calm down strenuously, lowered her weapon and turned toward her second-in-command.

“Request permission to advance,” Uriel showed humility.

“Granted,” Michael muttered, dropping the sword and kneeling to grab a badly torn-up dummy and patch it up with her miracle energy. “Do come in, Uriel. But tell me earnestly: does Gabriel send you to talk sense into me?”

“Nothing of the like.” Uriel’s voice was markedly even and relaxed. “I am here of my own device. He doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

Michael stayed silent, further repairing her equipment. Uriel finally entered the room and stopped next to her commander, her hands linked in front of her body; Michael didn’t even glance up.

“Request permission to speak frankly.”

Michael measured her second-in-command judiciously from below. “Uriel, you are aware I have the utmost trust in you and your word,” she muttered, sounding stiff and far-away, “I did not promote you to your post without a good reason.”

“Why do you want to forsake us?”

Michael petrified upon hearing this question; finally, she leant her head back and rose to get roughly to eye level with Uriel. Though her superior was a little shorter than her, the golden Archangel felt as if she towered miles above. “I already explained my reasoning,” she replied bleakly, “Forsaking you was never in consideration. I merely have to… renew my connection to our Almighty in peace and quiet and prayer, as it were.”

“Outside of our holy halls?”

Michael gritted her teeth. “I have my reasons, Uriel. Will that be all?”

Uriel turned her face toward the floor; she felt reluctant, but if her General sent her away with such stern words, there was no opening for her to disobey. She stood down without turning her back to Michael, but she had only taken two steps at most as the pale Archangel let out a defeated sigh. “I beseech you, Uriel: stay and listen,” she muttered, “I am not… listen, I am unsure whether I am ready yet to share. I do not know whether I have the words. But if you really want to hear and understand… well, you shall.

All I am thinking is… see, Uriel, the state of Earth gets more and more troubling. The nests of hatred and detestation that crop up wherever you look… egoism, betrayal, violence, general lack of honourability. Heresy, humans turning away from the Almighty who provided guidance all the way. The mortals, Uriel, they reject our care and supervision and protection and think it amusing… think it a game.” Uriel sensed how anger wanted to take over her superior’s mind, but also how she did her utmost to control these notions. This unsettled her; in the centuries of their existence, nobody ever had witnessed an emotional outburst of Michael’s. She was as earnest, upright, powerful, severe, controlled and calm as a river, ferocious, a force of nature, but still kept at bay by a dam. Occasionally Uriel had wondered whether Michael even had any impulses to speak of.

“I blame Lucifer,” the pale Archangel continued after having subdued the unruly emotions, again resembling a sculpture, “my brother is the source of everything that upsets us so much about Earth. Something must have happened that empowered him and his allies, and he uses it against those we are meant to protect per the Almighty’s word. And it is at this time that I stop hearing Her voice in the back of my head? That I lose Her comforting presence and doubt Her clemency?” A bitter, cynical expression graced Michael’s face. Uriel felt the impulse to grab her General’s wrists and pull them towards her chest to warm her hands, desired the insecure-inquisitive-held-back expression which was the only possible way for Michael to react to such an affront short of a reprimand. “There might be coincidences, my Uriel, conceivably, but this is not one. I am getting punished… as long as I am punished, I am unclean… and as long as I am unclean I cannot remain near you, or Gabriel, or my recruits, or any being spotless enough to have a right to be here.”

“Punished?” Uriel looked at her commander pleadingly, couldn’t imagine any truth in her words. “What should you be punished for?”

“I threw him down,” the pale Archangel explained solemnly. “I alone. I was the only one who had the strength, and, the Creator help me, I did it. My sword and my celestial power wounded Lucifer and humiliated him. My holy light blinded and disarmed him. I and my troops chased him and his allies away, banished him to Hell. Whatever calamity or devastation he unleashes now that we do not control him… it is my fault as well as his.”

“What do you think you should rather have done?” Uriel took a step toward her; Michael’s stance remained forbidding and stern, but she made no move to throw the other one back. “Had he remained he’d have burned down our pure white paradise. You know that as well as I do.”

Silence.

“Does his treachery not pain you anymore?” Uriel finally added.

“His treachery pains me with the power of a thousand suns,” Michael mumbled, lifting a gently quivering knuckle to her mouth, “no day goes by without me wondering how things could have been had he not had these… ideas. This desire for chaos and disrepair, this insurrection against the Almighty’s guidance. I want to loathe him, my own brother, but I manage to only hate his deeds and philosophies, never his face.

Nevertheless… we could have had him in chains and put him away up here. Like Raphael… we could have imprisoned him and convinced him to change his mind. We could have made an attempt at reforming him. Anything! Anything but to let him exercise his power unchecked upon this place we were supposed to keep safe…”

“It wouldn’t have held him for long,” Uriel pointed out.

“It holds Raphael still,” Michael countered, cramped and tense.

Uriel waved this away. “Those are two different cases, Michael. Raphael is still utterly angel – there is no strain, no trace of evil in his mind, not a spark of infernal energy in his aura. I talk to him now and then – after all he is my brother most of anything – and he has absolved me. Should you be concerned about him, I am certain he will absolve you as well. But Lucifer? His rage and the rage of his followers would have overwhelmed us had we let him.”

“Possibly,” Michael whispered. Still, her body language made Uriel who had kept a stronger emotional intelligence than her Archangelic brethren understand that none of her words had touched Michael’s core. She hadn’t expected it, either – not on the spot.

In the end, Michael, she mused melancholy, you have to forgive yourself… and achieving your forgiveness is probably the most daunting task that could be presented to anyone.


	3. Chapter 3

“You have to forgive yourself,” she made the attempt nevertheless, “lift up your head and go on with the way things are. This is the most important thing.”

Michael uttered an enervated, weary sound and turned to the restoration of her training area again. Uriel had seen this coming. Michael had neither time nor patience for such metaphysical chitchat.

“It is not your fault,” Uriel breathed, her other arguments exhausted.

Michael sighed, picked up the sword again and turned it listlessly about in her hand, readying herself to continue her mock battle. “That will be upon the Almighty to decide,” she finished their discussion with deceptive calm, “and should She command me to vacate these premises I will go – whatever Gabriel will or will not approve of. Now if you do not mind…? I still have to finish my exercise.”

Uriel chuckled. By way of a miracle she soon held a mock weapon of her own – a wooden staff that could double as a spear or lance. “These dummies do not present a challenge,” she said while Michael uncertainly lifted her brow, “how about going up against someone who will fight back?”

“Uriel,” Michael said intensely, shaking her head. “You do not understand. I am not fully stable. If I fall into a rage…”

“Nothing will happen to me. This way or the other.”

“Is that so.” Michael’s mien took on something majestic; she spoke more succinctly and readied her body for an attack, nearing Uriel with careful steps. “You think we are evenly matched?”

“Oh no. No, not at all. But I know that you are good and honourable enough that you will never harm me whom you know to be loyal and devoted.”

Furthermore: do not forget that it was my voice and presence that lifted you out of your rage after your battle with Lucifer. You were awe-inspiring, my second sun, and still I could not but love you, love you to an extent that I thought my heart might shatter.

Michael charged.

Uriel in a quick reflex reaction parried with the staff; cheap metal clanked against wood, and the sound as well as taking up eye contact to their opponent made both Archangels grin under strain.

Michael used the momentum and energy of Uriel’s defence and turned away, jumping since her second-in-command attacked her legs; the golden Archangel could only barely evade a sword to her neck. Quickly and unrepentantly Michael let her sword rain down upon Uriel’s defence, forcing her to step backward with every lunge, but she didn’t let any discomfort show. With deceptive easiness and comfort she blocked all the hits, trying not to let Michael see that every single impact had a more deep and more painful effect on her. Flashes of pain burrowed ever deeper into her bones as she retreated: first only her knuckles hurt, then parts of her lower arm, her elbow, upper arm, and finally the whole arm up to the shoulder. Yet she forced herself to remain steadfast and not let anything show; Uriel knew perfectly well what it meant to spar with Michael, and she wouldn’t complain.

Almost having backed up against the far wall, alrteady feeling the solidity of the barrier in her back, Uriel rammed the staff down into the ground and used it as a high jump device to regain some manoeuvering room; the pale Archangel waited for her to land with a lunge, and Uriel was wounded for the first time. Blood dripped onto her vest, but she ignored it. Her concentration was focused on her opponent who attacked again, mercilessly, targeting head, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, sides with sword, feet, knees and elbows. Her speed was rising pitilessly, and the glance into Michael’s eyes that slowly opaqued and stared more through than at her confirmed Uriel’s suspicion: her commander submerged into the flow of the duel. Now she needed to be thrice as careful.

She wanted to be a challenge before she would inevitably be conquered.

The battle lasted a few hours which, for the contestants, rushed by like mere minutes; every movement of the one found an adequate response by the other. Only now and then one of their weapons had an impact on skin, flesh or bones of the opponent, and the resulting wounds were minor. A little cut, a bruise, an abrasion, a drop of blood here, a flash of pain there. It was an armed dance, harmonic and balanced, that led the angels through the extent of the room, and while Uriel grew ever more concentrated and grimly determined, Michael seemed to drift away into unseen dimensions, the corners of her mouth slack and the eyes lifeless while her body moved like a robot.

Finally, Uriel managed to disarm her commander; the clang of metal on stone rang through the hall. The golden Archangel expected it to be over, that Michael would surface again, shake her head and offer a handshake – “well fought, Lieutenant General” – but it didn’t happen.

Not even stopping to compose herself after the loss of her sword, Michael whirled around, only narrowly avoiding Uriel’s weapon. Then, everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Michael’s lifted and stretched leg found Uriel’s cheekbones.

The golden Archangel stumbled to the side, losing her stance as well as her weapon.

She somehow managed to not crash to the ground, and would have soon recomposed herself; but Michael was already there, grasped her closest shoulder in an iron grip and forced Uriel to remain in her bowed posture. Then her knee rapidly hit Uriel’s stomach, her chest, and finally forcefully her chin.

It was over. Uriel’s lower jaw clattered upward against the upper jaw, blood spurted from her nose and mouth, and she sank to the floor, coughing and defeated, pressing her hand onto the damply pulsing stomach. She could hear Michael pant above; but she also sensed that with every passing second the aura of the victor changed, that her scorching triumph slowly disintegrated into the ash of shock and disillusionment.

“Almighty help,” the pale Archangel stammered as consciousness and thought had flooded back into her, letting herself sink onto the floor next to Uriel and putting her hands out over her to miraculously right at least a fraction of the damage done, “Uriel… Uriel, I told you I was not to be trusted in my momentary state of mind. Dear Lord, how could you… how are you feeling now?”

Uriel spat out. “Just a flesh wound,” she talked her sores down with a grisly, bloodied smile. And, “I knew you wouldn’t harm me.”

Would not harm her? “Look what I did to you! Can you stand up?”

Uriel’s warm smile and the affectionate spark in her eyes were real as she grasped Michael’s hand and let her help her up. Her balance and poise didn’t even look too instable. “You could have discorporated me then and there. But you didn’t. Do you know why? Because you can tell friend from foe, even in rage. Your faith in the Almighty is to be praised… but do also believe in yourself a bit more.”

Michael stared up at Uriel, helplessly, occasionally soundlessly opening and closing her mouth again. Uriel knew what she had to do, and she also knew this was unheard of.

Angels were ethereal beings – were envisioned as ethereal beings. They might choose to take flesh now and again to be able to do their work in the physical realm, but they had started out bodiless and were made to exist, move and also feel without one. The synapses and tactile sense of physical flesh mostly left a lot to be desired for them – they had developed other means, vastly preferable for them, to show each other affection and support.

For an angel – and, by extension, also for a demon – pure, conscious presence in the same room, on the same seat, in relative proximity could have the same effect as a tender, reassuring reaching-out for hands or shoulders.

A friendly glance or loving thought resembled an embrace or the comforting linking of fingers.

The conscious feeling and sharing of heartfelt, devoted warmth could be compared to snuggling up to one another beneath a blanket.

The invitation to bodiless flight with another was so much more than a kiss…

Usually, the angels made widespread use of these their modes and proofs of dedication and fondness. They had, nevertheless, observed other forms with their charges on Earth, less subtle and spiritual, incomparably more clunky and rougher, but thereby also much more intense – like using a sledgehammer for getting a regular nail into a wall. Among the angels, using those was regarded as crude and unrefined, yes, downright brutal, what with how little subtlety and delicacy they carried.

This was why Michael, despite all her trust and appreciation for her second-in-command, froze in place as Uriel, still weak and bloody, wound her arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. She was too insensitive to be deeply touched by the spiritual tendernesses of those around her – Michael needed to be affected in this overly marked way or would not be affected at all.

The pale Archangel wanted to be able to defend herself, Uriel sensed it, wanted to be able to push her away, but in the end she gave in with a wheeze, let her forehead sink against Uriel’s collarbone and lifted her hands to claw into Uriel’s upper arms.

As long as I am close, Michael, she silently promised her commander who had clasped her eyes shut in an attempt to force herself to relax, someone will always have your back. I will always be true to you – to you and whatever you are devoted to at the moment. I will be steadfast, I will be warm and loving and dependable, I will…

Uriel? Please be silent.

Uriel obeyed.

It would be some time still until that tempest would subside.


	4. Chapter 4

At their next private meeting, Uriel and Michael wore men’s breeches, fish-boned corsets under their military jackets, and large buckled shoes. Michael’s uniform shone in scarlet; the midnight blue of Uriel’s uniform contrasted brilliantly with her dark skin.

The state of the warlike Archangel had normalized. As Gabriel had ordered, she had taken up her post the day after her application had been denied, and since then carried out her duties without disruption, always with Uriel, bless her, at her side. The golden Archangel had been watching her commander, with her eyes as well as with her mind, and she didn’t think it was over, but at least Michael’s overpowering ratio had regained authority over her rather stunted emotional life.

Michael just had herself laced into the corset by her deputy as she said, “I was thinking, Uriel.”

Uriel didn’t answer. Michael pondered most of the time; it was in her nature.

“I would like to speak to Raphael.”

“Hmmmm,” Uriel uttered thoughtfully. “I am sure he will receive you most graciously.”

Michael shook her head as Uriel tied the knot behind her back. “I want you to accompany me,” she ordered, “he shall… should he attack me, I want someone to be there who can stop me if I fail to prevent myself from discorporating him.”

Uriel said nothing – you would never, never, never – but nodded wistfully. “If this is your wish,” she said obediently, suppressed the desire to encouragingly grasp both her shoulders or to encompass the entire shoulder girdle and pull her commander’s back against her chest. Instead, she now helped Michael into her jacket. Finally, she clasped her hands behind her back and walked side by side with her commander towards the prison wing in which one single inmate brooded by himself for several thousand years: her own twin brother, Archangel Raphael.

Uriel loved Raphael; that couldn’t be denied. But she loved him in the condescending, exasperated way one loved the young, nosy cousin who strayed away and broke the rules at every opportunity, simply to break them, and who always knew everything better, but whom you could never be angry with for long. Raphael’s purity was unmatched, as was his unpretentiousness and indomitable pacifist nature; it was precisely this last thing, however, that had brought this lamentable fate upon him.

The Archangels had voted among themselves, even before Jesus had been a whisper in anyone’s ear, in which direction they wanted to steer this organization; Raphael had been the only one to advocate for lenience, pacifism (instead of unforgivingness and strictest observation of their rules) and jurisprudence that was oriented towards the situation, not the letter of the law. He had accepted the outcome, but planned to steal away and live and spread his convictions by himself. The council of Archangels, however, had decided they couldn't allow one of their own to go rogue. He would have compromised the Plan, compromised them all; what else could they have done but seize and incarcerate him?

It made sense to Uriel that Michael would start softly here, then address the bigger question, the one of her own fallen twin. She was confident that Raphael would prove helpful.

Raphael’s single confinement cell was an empty cube of translucent walls; they were just tangible enough to carry his weight and provided a magnificent vista. Raphael had mastered the walls sufficiently in the centuries of his imprisonment that he could make them show everything he wanted to observe. The Archangels found him, clad in the earthy brown robe of the earliest days, even before Earth and the mortals, and sitting dead centre on the ground. He didn’t look up or turn as they entered and locked the door behind them.

“Greetings, Archangels, honoured Michael and Uriel,” he greeted, not rude in word or tone, “I have to apologize for my deplorable hospitality, but unfortunately, I am unable to offer refreshments or seats.”

“Don’t mock us,” the golden one chided him, but her severity left room for improvement, and now at last the prisoner turned and grinned at them over his shoulder, “Michael came to talk to you.”

Dearest sister, everything about Raphael seemed to say; Uriel gloried in that sensation and reciprocated it as best as she could.

Dearest brother.

“Is that so?” Raphael got up unhurriedly and finally faced the Archangels straight-on, adjusting and dusting his robe, “Of course I would be overjoyed to answer the Chief of the Heavenly Military’s every question. Unless, of course, you came to finish what you started millennia ago?”

Michael took a step forward, calmingly lifting a hand; Raphael linked his hands behind his back and his grin narrowed to a thin smile as he concentrated on the pale one. “Nothing of the sort,” she promised, audibly anxious, “I… I am disconsolate I did not visit in such a long time.”

“I presume you were terribly busy,” Raphael conceded.

“That… may be true, but…” Michael fumbled for words. Uriel tried to make her feel encouragement and support. “I wonder if we have done right by you. And by Lucifer.”

Raphael laughed heartily. “Oh, the beacon of heavenly light has second thoughts? Delicate…”

“Raphael!” Uriel scolded sharply.

“And this leads you to… me?” the healing Archangel, thus chastised, spread his arms. “I cannot relieve your qualms, Michael. All I can do – and I will gladly do as much – is to forgive you for what happened to me specially. I absolve you, Archangel Michael. Officially and out of the depths of my heart and mind.” The last words he spoke in Enochian, the mystic language of angels – a language in which there was no word that wasn’t also an invocation, and which only made the Archangel’s absolution real and binding. Raphael ended with a bow, his hand flat on the centre of his chest; Uriel was uncertain if she should admonish him again. It was hard to gage how much of this had been ridicule.

Michael stared at him in disbelief, only faintly shaking her head. “How can you accept this with no more than a shrug?” she asked, perfectly at a loss, “Overcome and locked away for centuries…”

“Because you may have succeeded in putting away me, and my body,” he explained promptly, “but not my spirit. Not my… persuasions. Those are out there, slumbering in all the lower-ranking angels who carry it out into their world, be that Heaven or Earth, and in the humans who were either taught or developed it by themselves, in each littlest act of compassion and solidarity shared between beings. One day, of that I am certain, my empathy, my commonality and sacrifice will overpower your Great Plan. Until then, however…” there was nothing artificial about the smile around his faintly bearded lips, “… until then I love you all unconditionally.”

There was silence for a minute or two; nobody seemed to know what to say.

“I approach you with an earnest request for a conversation and you… give me jests?” 

Uriel bit her lip. There was an audible twitch in Michael’s voice; Raphael had roused her anger, and in this state, nobody could know what was needed to make it burst out.

“Indeed no, Archangel Michael.” Raphael, meekly, retreated half a step. “I give you honesty. You would expect no less of me, or am I mistaken in this?”

Michael calmed down painstakingly. “Fair enough,” she admitted.

“About Lucifer…” Raphael lifted his head, staring into the far-off. “I sincerely doubt you will achieve his forgiveness. Ever.”

“Much too little angel has remained in him,” Uriel added, sounding melancholy.

“I never questioned that,” Michael murmured, hugging her own elbows, “and I do not require his pardon. He has betrayed us, and his penalty is just. I fear only that his banishment and what he has, following that, been allowed to do, the consequences for the rest of creation, are why the Almighty has abandoned me…”

“Has She, though?” Raphael interrupted, now approaching intently, “Why, then, are you still here?”

“Gabriel…”

“Gabriel’s verdicts mean nothing without the Almighty’s approval.” It was blasphemous to speak thus, but in front of her commander and her disgraced brother Uriel felt she could chance it. “If his decision to keep you here hasn’t found the Almighty’s blessing, why haven’t you fallen yet? How would he even be able to pronounce it if She deemed it wrong?”

“I – do not – know!” A desperate cry out of Michael’s throat. Uriel’s yearning to touch her grew exponentially.

“What a brilliant mind you have,” Raphael whispered, measuring the pale one admiringly. “And this self-centred and desirous. You want to know, yes? To understand it like you understand everything, without help from your gut. Too bad it cannot work the way it should.”

“My mind works quite flawlessly,” Michael grumbled.

“No, Michael,” the healer shook his head, “you’re not listening. You are restless and undecided – and this is understandable! Because this is the first time that your noble and oh so flawless mind…” Raphael’s voice grew piercing, “… has to battle an emotional response. Your mind tells you: exiling Lucifer was inevitable. But your emotion makes you see the consequences – this breeds a dissonance, an antagonism, which your mind cannot assuage by itself. How should it, too, you have never permitted any sentiment to even touch you! You must battle the notion that you, the most holy, most radiant Archangel Michael, have made a mistake.”

Michael said nothing, her teeth burrowed deeply into the soft flesh of her lip. Uriel saw how her shoulders and wrists shook – this disquieted her. Never before had she seen her commander like this.

“Am I wrong?” Raphael asked quietly.

Michael said nothing.

Uriel prevented herself under utmost strain from grabbing Michael’s shoulders and ushering her out.

“You just, for the Almighty’s sake, have to stop berating yourself for it. This discord stunts you and, which is even more grave, drowns out the Almighty’s voice.”

Michael lifted her head, her voice laboriously calm and collected. “Now you sound exactly like your sister.”

Raphael’s glance quickly flew back and forth between his visitors. “You already told her…” he asked Uriel incredulously, “… and still she had to come here to hear it out of my mouth? You disappoint me, Michael. How is her word not sufficient? Uriel is intelligent. Do listen to her, I pray you. That you of all angels fail to see that, what with how close you…”

It took only a warning glance from Uriel to make the healer fall silent – still, he reciprocated her look with a mixture of amusement and reproach. Exactly how long do you plan to torture yourself with this, asked his facial expression bitterly.

Why would you assume I was torturing myself, hers answered.

Raphael screwed up his face but said no more. “In the end it is like this, Michael,” he turned back toward the pale Archangel, “nobody can set you free, cleanse you, forgive you and reconcile you with yourself but – yourself. And as long as you bar yourself against it, no outside absolution, and if it were spoken by the Almighty personally, could do anything to put you at ease.”

“I would decline it as unearned,” Michael uttered sluggishly.

“Precisely,” Raphael concurred.

Silence set in; electrically charged glances flew back and forth between Michael and Raphael. Uriel felt this was her moment to make herself known, and she cautiously approached, putting all her willpower into not embracing Michael and pulling her away from Raphael. “I think what Raphael wants to say,” she tried to soothe her commander, shooting her brother a pleading sideways glance, “is that you should not let yourself be stopped by your… uncertainties. You… you have a clear idea… oh, you have knowledge about right and wrong, and it is paramount that you practice this. With heart and mind… emotion and thought.”

“I understand him well enough.” Michael’s voice was cold and full of a resolve that made Uriel shiver. “It is a call to action, is it not, Raphael? You say if I find Lucifer’s actions abhorrent, I should work at putting a stop to them, not lament them and whatever part I might have had in them. You say I should act, not simply ponder; I should actively be a force of the light instead of merely despairing over the forces of darkness and their influence. You say Lucifer is my burden, assigned to me by the Almighty – that I need to face this task, fulfil my destiny – and that I can only be back at peace with myself and creation once I have shouldered this burden.”

“It would have been too cruel to lock him in or murder him,” Raphael agreed.

“Still, we cannot let him vandalize what we swore to keep safe,” Uriel added.

“If I do that, though…” Michael didn’t appear optimistic, “if I face this unwinnable war and dismantle Lucifer’s plans where I find them, if I protect the weak and helpless and do whatever I need to achieve this… will I be cleansed? Will I be worthy again of staying at this pristine place?”

Raphael smiled. “Your striving alone makes you more than worthy,” he answered.


	5. Chapter 5

“Was that really necessary, Raphael?” Uriel asked demoralized as Michael had taken her leave of the twins. 

Raphael chortled. “What exactly was ‘necessary’ or unnecessary, dearest sister?” he inquired, reaching for her elbow and winding her arm around his back. Uriel didn’t fight back; for the first, she knew that Raphael wouldn’t be refused, and for the second, his closeness was more comforting than she cared to admit.

“You ridiculed and disheartened her.”

“She deserves it, Uriel. You all deserve to have yourselves teased a bit.”

His sister’s glance upon this seemed sufficient to start a wildfire. Her fingernails clawed into the small of his back while his arm enveloped her shoulders, his hand finally slid down her back to her waist. Archangel Raphael groaned. “Fine, I didn’t only do it for my entertainment. Which you would also have to give me, sister dear, sometimes this here is boring me to tears.”

Uriel pulled a face, making it clear to her brother that he wasn’t to expect any compassion, not to mention understanding.

“I mostly did it because she needs to be pushed out of her comfort zone a bit. Because someone needs to teach her she is more than thoughts and calculation – that she just cannot look down her nose at everyone and everything. She will freeze down to the core otherwise, and this can’t be something you should want to let happen – considering what and how intensely you feel for her.”

Now it as Uriel’s turn to sigh, and she rested her forehead against her brother’s; Raphael’s wiry, longish hair wrapped around both their heads. Only now she noticed that he smelled nice, of fresh, wet grass and chilly mountain air. However did he do that?

“Perhaps,” she admitted. “But you will have to acknowledge that I know her better, therefore I have a better understanding of how to treat her. How to talk to her… and how not to.”

“You are entirely as stiff and cold and forbidding as her – or will soon be.” There was no reproach, no bitterness, no attack in his voice, not even the usual playful derision; he had stated a fact without any value judgment. 

Uriel hesitated and felt for her heartbeat (it was utterly calm) before she answered, “Quite possible.”

“And, is it something you look forward to?”

“If it means I can share Michael’s company… oh, I could think of worse fates.”

\----------------------------------------------------

As they met the next time, Michael and Uriel wore tight-fitting but more easily-to-move-in uniforms and shiny, shin-high boots. The invention of gunpowder and firearms had rendered their blades virtually useless for anything other than representation and prestige, which meant they had stopped carrying them on their person all the time. None of the two thought very highly of the newest developments in warfare, but they could neither stop nor reverse the progress of mankind.

In performance of her duties, Michael occasionally descended into Hell, for more or less diplomatic consultations; after all, she was well-versed in negotiations as well as in the usage of different weapons. She worked hard on her status as the only angel who could navigate Hell without running the risk of getting accosted, pushed around, spat at or mocked, lured into traps or simply beaten up, and she saw to it that most demons only dared whisper her name behind closed doors. She made the demons fear her icy eyes, probably even more than her blade, and the more totally Gabriel left the field of connections to their competitor to her – meaning, the obligation to make sure those down there didn’t get any ideas above their station – the more self-assured and proud and confident of her calling she became.

This, in turn, allowed Uriel to breathe more freely.

“You wanted to speak to me?” asked the golden Archangel, having half opened Michael’s office door, and Michael looked up from whatever she had been working on that moment. The expression on her commander’s face signalled to Uriel how grave this was.

“Come in,” the pale Archangel invited her second-in-command, putting the paper and quill aside, and the golden one obeyed, mindfully closing the door behind her, “sit down. Our matter is a serious one.”

Uriel took a seat and waited.

Michael continued measuring her; what she searched for Uriel couldn’t tell, but she reacted to her commander’s inquisitive poise with patience and impartiality.

“I have been thinking, Uriel,” she finally began, sounding a bit stinted, but still strong-minded, “and something occurred to me. In our last… private discussion… you spoke, and your brother spoke of emotions and that I should pay more attention to them.”

Uriel didn’t answer; yet her demeanour signalled encouragement, serenity and harmony.

Michael rose from her chair, rounded her desk and sat on an edge close to Uriel; she, in turn, looked up into her superior’s face without any fear. “This, as well as some… let us call them observations… from the centuries past led me to the question…” she cleared her throat, quite like she were going to pronounce something that was bound to embarrass her, “… how it might be about your… emotions. Especially concerning… well, myself.”

Uriel smiled fleetingly, touched by the caution and indecision her General displayed. Still, this was much like her. No subterfuge, no embellishments, just straight to the point. A strategy that called for reciprocation. “I admire you,” Uriel answered, promptly and earnestly.

Michael pressed her lips together and slightly lifted her shoulders – it was probably meant to look dismissive, but it felt much too tense so communicate such easiness. “Which is much rather a result of observation, impression and thought than a pure feeling,” she relativized, “but I will accept it. And apart from that?”

Uriel’s smile didn’t fade; but she apprehensively crossed her legs and linked her hands on the upper knee. “I will confess that I have been dreading this exact question for a long while.”

Michael stared at the floor silently. For some moments, nothing was audible but the angels’ breaths and for Uriel her own heartbeat between her ears, deep in the pit of her stomach, down in her knees, in her knuckles which she watched intertwine. Finally she could convince herself to say, “It is nothing I could not control.”

This remark hung in the air above the angels quite like doom. Lying had been out of the question; Uriel could fool Michael for no length of time, and she wouldn’t for the life of her risk her righteous wrath. The pale Archangel cramped her hands around the edge of her tabletop and averted her glance, it shortly having rested upon Uriel; she, however, felt the warmth she associated with her commander bubble up within her with might and did her best to keep herself controlled.

Look at me, she implored and didn’t let it show. I know I have overstepped your boundaries, Michael, but please, do at least look at me. I cannot lose you and have the last I see of you be your scalp and the outer line of your forehead.

“I would detest to be another chore or responsibility – another burden upon you.”

As Michael looked back up, there was something weird in her eyes – something like a fire that was flickering inside a closed vessel but could reach and peek out through little holes, cracks, rips. It was not an intimidating sight; quite the opposite, it looked like something you would sit down next to in order to warm your hands. Uriel stopped short and wondered how she would have to interpret this.

“I work well with chores and responsibilities,” Michael breathed.

Words that hit the base of Uriel’s skull like a thunderclap.

“What is it that you want to say?” she asked breathlessly.

Michael corrected her posture, now looking straight at Uriel, and reached out for her. “I think I want to make a proposition,” she continued, her voice even and steady but containing a certain half-controlled tremor. “Because I think I need you, Uriel. I need you close to make sure that this side of myself does not dry up completely. You give me direction, certainty, a goal, a horizon I can use to gain orientation – encouragement when I feel abandoned in the Almighty’s silence. I do not know what I can offer in return, Flame of God, but I feel I must ask you – no, I must beg you to also be my flame. My lighthouse putting everything into perspective for me when the compass stops working. My heart that feels for me.” She smiled feebly. Artificially. “What do you say?”

The pale Archangel’s hand still hovered in the air, an offer, an invitation, so surreal and fragile that Uriel thought she must be dreaming, and every second this whole situation must dissolve into smoke and dizziness and cold sweat.

“I am afraid,” Uriel muttered, shifting forward on her chair and still not daring to even think of taking Michael’s hand, “I cannot be that any more than I have been all the time.”

This time, Michael’s smile was genuine; a wave of relief and delight that she emitted almost made Uriel dizzy, so very dizzy. “That is good enough for me,” she said, getting up and taking the decision for or against taking the hand from Uriel’s mind. Heavy and meaningful she placed her hand on the golden Archangel’s shoulder, and she immediately lifted her own as if to place it over the General’s.

Michael noticed and nodded hearteningly; go ahead. Her eyes were cold as always, but her demeanour, her gestures, her expression were unusually cordial and inviting.

Uriel hardly dared to do as she was asked. To give in to her?

“More than good enough.”

Uriel kept her silence, with dry lips and a heavy tongue, with her head lowered, her eyes half closed, a flicker in her brain and an odd mixture of euphoria and disbelief in her nervous system. She knew that wanting to say anything meaningful right now was an exercise in futility, even folly. In these moments, Michael and her had left the sphere of what words were able to express far behind, had linked – no, had unified their bodiless astral existences until Judgment Day when they would face the Almighty and receive their verdicts.

“Gabriel will be displeased,” Uriel finally croaked, looking up to her commander – and she grinned.

“So let not him, but the Creator be our judge and jury,” Michael replied, her voice, her strained smile, the fire in her eyes more caress and embrace than Uriel could have ever wished for, “if She smites us this very moment, we shall know that and how we failed Her.”

They waited.

Nothing happened.

“Apart from that: Gabriel needs not know it. Nobody needs know it. It is enough that we carry it in us – and we shall never forget.”

“In every second of every day…”

“And I shall enjoy every last one.”

Nothing could be added to this.


End file.
